


The Small Indian Mongoose Is Not Immune to the Cobra's Venom

by Brigantine



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray has a history of not picking on guys his own size.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Small Indian Mongoose Is Not Immune to the Cobra's Venom

**Author's Note:**

> Written for DS Match challenge 2007, Team Angst/Team Romance. Me, Team Angst.

This here, this is two shots to the chest, and him without a vest. He's down here in some tilted place where he can't find his balance, and it's dark. Is this how drowning on the Henry Allen would have felt? This awful way his lungs ache, this lost, helpless feeling, how terribly cold he is? There's something beeping somewhere, slow and steady, maybe his alarm clock? But Ray can't move to shut it off. Bloom, close, kick 'em in the head. He knows the drill, he remembers what Fraser taught him, but he can't make anything work. He's stuck down here and he's sinking, he just keeps sinking. He tries not to panic. It's awfully hard to think. He wonders if he's dreaming, if he'll ever wake up. He remembers things, certain things...

"...you some kinda cocksucker, Kowalski?"

  "It's not just a job - it's an adventure." Ray's lips pursed suggestively and he puffed out a ring of cigarette smoke that wavered as it floated upward in the autumn air. He swung one leg off the Indian, then leaned back against the low seat, a skinny, Polish Steve McQueen in battered black leather and torn jeans greyed with engine grease that would never completely wash out.  

Isaacson sneered, his cronies edging out either side of him into a half circle of teenage animosity. "You admitting you're a fag? You like dick? Your after school hobby sucking off other guys, is that it? You get on your knees for it, Stanley?"  

Ray cracked his neck sideways and took another drag, as though he couldn't give less of a damn, but his boots were planted solid on the ground. He flashed a smile, bright with fierce anticipation. "It's not a hobby - it's a way of life. It's... So Isaacson, how you know so much about it?"  

Mike's face turned red and his big fists balled up.

Ray blew a leisurely stream of smoke out through his nose, all the while his lanky body going stealthily taut, wire strung over bone. Only a few years ago he'd been a scrawny little Polish kid with glasses, had peed himself out of sheer terror during a bank robbery when he was thirteen. Ray had learned fast after that. He'd never be a heavyweight, but these days he knew how to use what he had. He sensed movement behind him, noticed Mike's expression shift.

  "Hey baby," Stella crooned. She leaned over the bike to rest her chin on Ray's bony shoulder. She always smelled so damn good, he'd thought about quitting smoking, just so the smoke wouldn't interfere with the nice way Stella smelled. "Ready to go?"

  Ray turned his head and she kissed him, bitter cigarette taste and all. He slung one long leg over his bike, and his beautiful Gold Coast girl snugged up behind him on the seat and grabbed him tight around his narrow waist. Ray cranked the old Indian, gunning the engine he and his dad had tuned to sweet perfection. He grinned at Isaacson and his goons, standing baffled on the pavement. "Later, losers..."  

...which mostly summed up his senior year of high school, Ray taking flak for being friends with guys like Lou MacElroy who, yeah, was a mama's boy, but he was a nice kid, and Ray wouldn't have passed algebra without him. Ray could handle guys like Isaacson. Ray knew how to take a hit, how to sustain damage and come right back for more. Knowing he could take it, that was half the battle.  

~~~~

  One night three days after New Year's a handful of goons grab Fraser right off the icy sidewalk in front of Wing's Hong Kong Diner. Ray's inside at the cash register when Mrs. Wing lets out a frightened squeak and points out the window. Ray drops the big paper sack full of good Cantonese home cooking that only Fraser knows how to ask for and roars out the front door as the Mountie's hiking boots disappear into the side door of a green van peeling away into the slick Chicago night.

  It's lucky the wolf is still back at the consulate, 'cause Dief would kill himself running after that van, and Ray with no way to call him back. As it is Ray swoops to pick up Fraser's Stetson off the ground, tosses it into the passenger seat where Fraser ought to be, and he jumps into the GTO and gives chase, weaving the black Pontiac north through late night traffic and half of Chicago, cussing 'cause he left his phone in the back of the damn car and he can't reach it without either stopping or crashing, and he's trying not to run anybody over. That whole thing with the red light/green light? The driver of the van isn't paying any attention, so neither is Ray.

  Given recent events, he's got a pretty good hunch who the men in the van work for, which means he's got a couple of options, right off, as to where they might be headed. If he's right about who they are, but wrong about where they're going, and he loses them in the dark, he might not see Fraser again until whatever little bits are left of him wash up along the shores of Lake Michigan. The idea of Fraser dying slow and screaming doesn't bear thinking about. Just the possibility makes Ray sick, and Fraser hasn't got time for that.  

~~~~  

Ray learned a lot during his first year of college. Stella'd gone off to a fancier school than Ray could get into, what with her family being on a whole different financial continent than Ray's, so they couldn't spend as much time together as they used to. Ray did spend time with Tommy Soria, a tall, dark-haired kid from Ray's neighborhood. Soria was majoring in art and architecture. He was the only guy Ray knew who could draw a perfect circle freehand, draw a ruler-straight line without a ruler.

  One Friday night during winter quarter the two of them were kind of drunk and a little bit high, up in Tommy's bedroom. Tommy was draped half off of his bed, while Ray was down on the floor looking through one of his art books, this one about a guy named Gaudi, who'd built all kinds of crazy places all over Barcelona back around the turn of the century. Not the kind of stuff Ray might want to live with every day, but it was bold and big on imagination, and he could see why Tommy got a kick out of it.   

After a while Tommy rolled off his bed, stretched out on the floor next to Ray and he said, "Don't punch me, okay Kowalski, but you ever get your cock sucked by a guy?"

  Ray snorted in surprise and blinked up into Tommy's curious brown eyes. "No. Why?" He'd maybe been down this gravel road before, but he never thought he'd have to deal with anti-homo shit from Tommy, so he let the guy have his say.  

Soria ran a nervous hand through his hair, and admitted, "I have. It's good."

  "Yeah?" Fact was, Ray had entertained the thought on occasion, though never seriously, not until then. Gutsy of Tommy to come right out and say what he was saying.  

Tommy turned bright pink and looked down at the floor, glancing at Ray sideways like he expected him to maybe hit him, or get mad and stomp out of the room and never talk to him again. "Um, I was kind of wondering if maybe you'd, y'know, let me."

  "I don't think I could do it back to you," Ray told him truthfully.  

A few minutes later Ray was stripped down to his t-shirt, his legs splayed open as Tommy sucked him hard. His mouth was hot and wet and his tongue was busy, and it was a good thing Ray was a dancer, 'cause Tommy kept elbowing Ray's knees wider, as though he couldn't get close enough to him. Ray's thigh muscles stretched, the tendons humming hot, and there was something about being handled that way, pushed down and held there, the way Tommy's fingers dug into his thighs that satisfied a part of Ray that he hadn't even realized was hungry. Ray was groaning and yelling and trying to make words to warn Tommy inside of three minutes. Thank God Soria's mom worked the night shift down at the hospital.

  Ray lay there sweaty and sticky in that weird, sleepy, post-orgasmic buzz while Tommy peered down at him anxiously. "You okay, Kowalski?"

  "Uh," Ray grinned weakly up at him.   

Tommy chewed his lip. "Um, Ray?"  

"Mmm?"

Tommy's lips were kind of swollen, and really red. That was prettier on a guy than Ray would ever have imagined.   "Um, can I... Jesus. Can I fuck you?"

  "Huh." Now that, that was a bold move. Ray thought about that for a minute as he lay there sprawled on the carpet, half naked, his dick pink and soft and still shiny from Tommy's mouth. He worried that by messing around with Tommy here he was cheating on Stella, regardless of how far away she was. He figured he had to draw the line somewhere. Still, now that Tommy had opened the box, so to speak, there were things in there Ray wanted to investigate.

  He shook his head, "Nah, I don't think so," but just as Tommy was shrugging and agreeing that that was okay, Ray sat up and told him, "Take off your pants."  

Pretty soon Ray was sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around Tommy's waist, the way Stella held him on the Indian, except that Ray had his hands nice and tight around Tommy's dick. He stroked him off, slow and steady, letting the goodness build, taking his time. It was weird to have another guy's dick in his fists, but it wasn't bad. Tommy was real warm there, hard, and satiny, same as Ray, and extra sensitive in all the same places. Every bit as vulnerable.  

Tommy was moaning, low and deep, as though right then his whole world revolved around Ray's hands, as though Ray was his sun and his stars. He collapsed backward, his head lolling against Ray's shoulder as his hips bucked up into Ray's grip. Tommy's hair was soft, brushing against his cheek, and Ray turned to rub his face in it while Tommy made helpless little noises, and came hot all over Ray's hands.

  ~~~~

  A duet, that was Ray and Fraser. Set 'em up, boom-boom knock 'em down. That second part of their super crime-fighter partnership was Ray's job, but he wasn't there to do it when Fraser needed him in that alley.

Wilson Warfield, Mob Guy, and Benton Fraser, Canadian Mountie, the two most stubborn men in Chicago and possibly the western hemisphere, going head to head a couple of days before Christmas, and the next thing anybody knew Fraser was in a dark alley with half a dozen of Warfield's best creeps, and Ray wasn't there to perform his half of the backstreet boogaloo. Fuck.  

But if Warfield had thought that would put an end to his problems, he was in for another think, 'cause Fraser limping bloody into the 2-7 was too much for any cop to take. And wasn't Warfield unpleasantly surprised, when half the precinct showed up on his doorstep not two hours later and made him fucking apologize for having smacked a busboy.   Fraser never demanded an apology for having had the stuffing kicked out of him, for a two-by-four cracked hard across his shoulders. That was beside the point, is what Ray figured. Fraser's point was, that in a civilised society it shouldn't be okay to go around slapping people - not even if you're a big mob boss like Willie Warfield.

  Afterward, Ray bugged Fraser pretty hard about not going back to his narrow cot in that cramped, spare closet that served as his office at the consulate. Ray talked him into coming back to his apartment, where he could keep an eye on him. Least he could do, after he'd so spectacularly let the guy down. They'd pick up some clean clothes and Diefenbaker, Ray said, and go back to Ray's place where it was warm, and there were soft places to sleep.

  Shocked the hell out of him when Fraser slumped a little and nodded, "Thank you Ray. I... I could use the company."   Which meant, in Mountie code, that he was exhausted and he hurt like hell and he was maybe a little scared of being alone with that, which is what Ray suspected, but he didn't say so.

  He said, "Pitter-patter, then."

  Fraser started to put on his hat, but winced and took it off again. "How's your hand?"

  Layers of white bandage flashed when Ray opened the door to the parking lot. "Shush."  

"Punching holes in the plaster again," Fraser teased gently.

  "I shoulda been in that alley with you."

  "No," Fraser sighed. "I shouldn't have been haunting Warfield's club. You were right, I was being selfish and stubborn. I oughtn't... I oughtn't insist on trying to remake the world as I think it should be."

  Ray shrugged as he unlocked the GTO. "You just want to leave it better than you found it. That's not such a sin, Fraser."

  Fraser slept in Ray's bed that night. He took a careful shower, all the while Ray scurrying around the apartment picking things up off the floor so Fraser wouldn't trip over them if he got up in the night, and working hard at not imagining him buck naked in the bathroom. Then Fraser got into his goofy red long johns that Ray secretly adored, brushed his teeth like a good boy scout, and snuggled right down into Ray's sheets that hadn't been changed in a couple of weeks, and fell asleep while Ray was still rummaging around for a clean set to put on the bed for him.

He looked so peaceful sleeping there Ray didn't have the heart to disturb him, not even in order to wiggle his beat up copy of "The Second Jungle Book" from under the pillow Fraser was hugging.   Ray stood over him, poised with the comforter, and took stock of the bruises on the left side of Fraser's face. Then he settled the comforter over Fraser's shoulders, and he reached down to very lightly trace the curve of Fraser's eyebrow, the one he scratched when he was nervous.

  Instead of sleeping out on the sofa Ray made a nest for himself in the overstuffed chair in the corner of the bedroom, and stretched his legs out on the ottoman. While Diefenbaker snored by the radiator Ray watched Fraser sleep, sat there in the dark thinking about how every breath Fraser took, even and slow, was full of Ray's scent, and how stupid he was to be turned on by that.

  ~~~~

  Ray loses the van down by the waterfront. He swears loudly and pounds his hands against the steering wheel before he forces himself to calm down and think, for Chrissake. This part of the docks is a popular place for nasty goings-on, so odds are good Fraser's somewhere near. If Ray doesn't get to him quick though, Fraser's corpse will be the latest in a long line. Ray finds his phone in the back seat and calls Welsh at the 2-7, rattling off his location and what he knows of the situation in a rapid-fire litany the lieutenant's brain has after years of association learned to decode into English.

Then Ray bares his teeth in a sort of preparatory grimace and he begins to track his partner through the dark, slushy canyons of freight containers waiting to be loaded shipboard.   Setting out picket guards is a dicey strategy. On the one hand, it's good to have early warning if, say, a very angry member of the CPD is hunting for his kidnapped partner. On the other hand, a goombah is a goombah, and does not look like a dock worker, no matter how blue collar he tries to appear.

  Each one of the sentries has to be dealt with, or Ray will find them at his rear when he's trying to get Fraser out. There are four of them. They're big and they're heavily armed, and Ray has neither time nor inclination to be kind. Mess with the nice Canadian Mountie, deal with the nasty Chicago flatfoot. It's a simple enough rule. Ray's right fist is sore as hell by the time he's finished. He probably shouldn't get off on that particular pain as much as he does.

  Soon after he's talked to Welsh a second time, he's inching his way through the inky front office of an empty warehouse, and he's certain he was right about what's happening. Warfield's right-hand man, Marty, he's quit and he's gone to work for Vinnie the Hole, a patron with more restraint, with some old-school grace. Warfield's lost plenty of ground since Christmas, since he had to post bail to get himself out of County. He's lost face, is how Welsh put it, on account of that whole contest between him and the Mountie, a contest Warfield lost. It's not Warfield's way to let that kind of thing go.

  In the main part of the warehouse, a high, dusty cavern that smells of old fish and rotted canvas, Ray finds Fraser strung up by his wrists. Fraser's looking freshly messed up, bruised up, like maybe the goons in the van started in on him on their way to the docks. He's been stripped down to his white henley and his jeans, his bare toes just about touching the cold concrete. With Fraser's arms drawn up like that his shirt has pulled loose from his waistband. His lean belly gleams pale pink under the harsh lights, still faintly marked with bruises left from the last time Warfield had him thrashed. Ray counts a handful of hard guys, and there's Wilson Warfield himself, puffing at his cigar and chuckling as he pushes at Fraser, making him swing in a slow, crooked arc. Jesus, the guy's always been a hothead, but it's clear to Ray now that he's finally cracked, gone loony tunes. Fraser's got his eyes shut and he looks to be bracing himself for whatever's coming next. Ray glimpses evidence of Warfield's plans for the night; a couple of rickety old tables scattered with a selection of blunt instruments and sharp objects that no fucking way is Ray allowing anywhere near Fraser.  

~~~~  

A month and a half after that first night with Ray, Tommy was shot and killed during a convenience store robbery. Completely random. Wrong place, wrong time. Ray wasn't there. Probably if he had been he would have ended up dead along with Tommy, but still he wished he could have been there, maybe done something. He mourned for his friend, for all that he had given Ray in such a short time, for all of the beautiful buildings that wouldn't get built 'cause Tommy Soria wasn't around anymore to dream them up.  

At school Larry Osgood, walking a few steps ahead of Ray with a couple of his jock friends started talking about what had happened, and when he got to the part where he laughed, "...but what the hell, it's one more faggot so who cares anyway?"

Ray dropped his books, spun Osgood around by one beefy shoulder, and Ray's right fist wiped the smirk off Larry's face with swift, brutal efficiency. One-two, man down. It wouldn't bring Tommy back, but the pure shock on Larry Osgood's face as he lay there bleeding onto the dirty linoleum, that wasn't quite nothing.

  Ray thought maybe Larry didn't press assault charges 'cause it'd be embarrassing, getting taken down by a skinny geek in glasses and then whining to the cops about it. Three days after though, Larry and his buddies cornered Ray out behind the gym when he was taking the shortcut to his afternoon job at the garage. Osgood and his pals got in some pretty good licks, but it cost 'em.   It turned out there was a witness to that whole dust-up, so by the next morning when Ray showed up to history class grinning through a split lip and a shiny new black eye he'd acquired a boxing coach, as well as a reputation. Not a lot of friends to go with either, but he was already thinking maybe he didn't belong there.

  ~~~~

  Stella had already left him and moved back up to a higher circle of friends by the time Fraser showed up. Fall in love, get married, get divorced, go into denial. Twenty-some years of the mat rising up to meet him, and when he finally fell Ray had thought he'd be down for the count. For a long time Ray believed he'd never get past the bone-deep ache of Stella leaving, but then Fraser had arrived, annoying and lovable, and Ray got so busy looking after the crazy Canadian that he sort of forgot to be depressed. Ray would always love Stella, and maybe she even still loved him a little bit, but Ray didn't _yearn_ for Stella anymore. Stella was not who he wanted. Who Ray wanted was right there sleeping in his bed. Still, Fraser wasn't Ray's any more than if he'd been sleeping in a space station orbiting Mars.  

The best Ray could expect was to maybe talk Fraser into staying with him for a couple days. Fraser might have been willing to walk himself home to the consulate, but those thugs had batted his belfry pretty darn good, and he needed to be looked after. Ray could do that much. Some time back his mom had snuck in a box of tea for Fraser, stuck it in Ray's cupboard right up front, like a hint, which if he thought about it was sort of freaky. He could make Fraser tea in the morning. He could feed him toast and eggs, tuck him into bed, and watch over him while he slept.   He could not tell Fraser the truth. How the hell does a guy tell his partner, his guy partner, that he's in love with him? That as far as he can figure, even though he might not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, he has realized that he loves the guy more than life? Jesus, Kowalski. Set yourself up for a knock-down, why don't you? A polite, Canadian knock-down. He didn't know exactly when he started loving Fraser more than metaphorically, but he remembered the day he realized it, and that was the day Janet Morse kissed Fraser at the precinct and then walked away with her husband. That was the day Ray understood how easily Fraser could be hurt, and that was the day Ray vowed never to tell him how he felt.  

Ask just about anybody and they'd describe Constable Fraser as deferential, polite, courteous. A nice guy, that Benton Fraser, they'd say, and they'd be right, but take your pick of any one of those different words for 'nice,' and to Fraser it also meant, 'Please keep your distance.' Ray got that. It had to be exhausting, the way people invaded Fraser's space all the time, pawing at him and fawning all over him, trying to get close to the guy they wanted him to be. The only time Fraser seemed to get any real peace was either when it was just him and the wolf, or when they were doing their Three Musketeers act; Fraser, Ray, and Diefenbaker. So Ray confessing his undying love? He didn't even want to imagine how that level of betrayal would look on Fraser's face.

  ~~~~

  From inside the warehouse Ray can hear the sirens already on the docks, running fast along the waterfront. Warfield hears them, too. He curses hard and pulls a snub thirty-eight from the pocket of his coat to press the muzzle to the back of Fraser's skull. Ray bolts from behind his cover, Beretta in his fist, and he barks, "Chicago PD! Drop your weapons and step away from the Mountie!"

  This part of the warehouse is made for forklifts and cranes, for boats unloading at the back, and Ray is walking the open floor fast, needing to close the too-far distance between himself and Fraser. "Move away from the Mountie!" He can feel his adrenaline racking up, his anger pulling his upper lip back from his teeth.

  Warfield jams the revolver behind Fraser's ear, and he growls, "You stop right there and put your weapon down, hero, or I do the Canadian right now!"  

Fraser wriggles angrily, a fish on a line. "Ray, don't! He'll kill you, he'll kill us both!"  

"Six of me and my guys to your one cop," Warfield snorts. "You could take out one, maybe two of my men—"

  "I could take out you." Ray could do that. He's got his glasses on and he's got Warfield here in his sights, and getting closer all the time.  

"But the Mountie will still be dead," Warfield points out.

  "He will kill me anyway," Fraser warns. "Dammit Ray, are you listening?"   

Ray can hear backup behind him, plenty of running feet, Jack Huey's voice coming up quick. "Time's up," he says.

Which is when Warfield fires. Ray takes the bullet in the right side of his chest, feels it slam home, but he's already wound up for the fight, and so close to running, the pain seems to miss him. He thinks to himself that if he can keep his feet, he can give Warfield someone else to shoot at besides Fraser until the Duck brothers get close enough to be a threat, and by the end of that thought he's already sprinting.   

Warfield spits out his cigar and grins.   

Ray realizes in one of those lightning strikes to the brain that what Warfield wants here isn't so much to kill Ray, as it is for Fraser to watch Ray die. The second bullet hits him a hand span from the first. Keyed up the way he is, it feels as though a heavyweight's punched him in the chest a couple of times, feels like hard knuckles bruising him, but no worse than getting pounded in the ring, and Ray doesn't even break stride, needing to get to Fraser before he falls.

  ~~~~

  In the spring Ray caught some loser hassling a girl under the stairs at the back of the art studio, backing her into the corner and making suggestions she obviously didn't want to hear. She was half the guy's size and brunette, and she hugged her school books to her body as a sort of shield.

  Ray stopped a few paces back and said, "Hey."  

The guy turned on him, startled and angry. "—the fuck are you? Beat it!"

  Ray recognized the school varsity jacket, with a fraternity pin on the front. Great. Mutant, and Phi Beta Crappa. "What part of her sayin' 'No' did you not understand?" He could feel his heart beating fast, his shoulders and his fists tensing as his blood revved up. Ray's own natural high.

  "This is none of your business, four-eyes. Now fuck off!"

  "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"  

"What?"  

Ray put his glasses in his coat pocket, and took a couple of steps forward. He could see the other guy's pulse, fast in his throat, watched his pupils narrow. Ray cracked his neck, a sharp nod sideways, a jerk of his chin, just loosening up. Fair warning.

  "Walk on, man. She doesn't want you." He bounced lightly on his toes, too much energy in him to stay still. The guy had at least thirty pounds on Ray, and he probably fought dirty as hell. Ray'd have to watch out for that. He grinned, a sharp, unfriendly flash of teeth, while something darkly red flickered behind his eyes.

  The bruiser in the varsity jacket glared back at him, his broad face switching from anger to confusion and finally to a sort of morbid fascination, like the latest victim watching Lon Chaney turn into a werewolf, or Dr. Jekyll turn into Mr. Hyde. Then Mr. Phi Beta shook his head, spat on the ground, and he left. He looked back at Ray once.  

The little brunette stood there hugging her school books and staring at Ray with big blue eyes, and then she breathed out, and then she breathed in again, roughly, like she'd been stuck under water for too long.  

Jesus, the relief in her eyes at that moment was a bigger rush than getting straight A's. Hell, it was almost as good as sex.  

Watch out bad guys, there's a new sheriff in town. All Ray needed now was a badge.   Man, his dad was gonna kill him.

  ~~~~  

Behind Ray all hell's breaking loose, what with Welsh and a couple dozen of Chicago's finest rushing into the warehouse. Warfield's guys panic, scatter and start shooting, and the police return fire with enthusiasm. Warfield takes off, running and swearing, 'cause he waited too long, playing the happy sadist. Where he goes from there, Ray neither knows nor cares.  

Ray's working hard for each breath as he slows to a stop. He takes Fraser's freshly bruised face between his palms, stares into his eyes, so big and so blue, and Ray kisses him solidly, right on the lips. He's always figured Fraser's mouth would be soft, as soft as this. When he draws back he can see a fresh, bright smear of blood on Fraser's lips. The thick, metallic taste in the back of his mouth tells him whose red that is.

  "Ray," Fraser says, his expression wide open with some vast emotion Ray can't translate at all.  

He wipes at Fraser's upper lip with one thumb, murmurs, "Sorry. I'm so sorry, Benton."  

"For what? No. You don't - Ray! Ray..."  

The damage he's taken catches up to him all at once, a great swell of pain rushing up and crashing over him. "Ah, fuck..."

Ray's legs buckle under him and he falls, crumpled and bleeding out on the cold concrete at Fraser's bare feet.   Fraser's voice breaks, miles above him.

  ~~~~

  A cop has questions when his partner, his once-married partner, runs straight down the barrel of a gun just to plant one on him, and it's not in Fraser's nature to let something like that lie quietly. It's a risky situation Ray's got himself into, but short of dying there's no getting around his eventually having to come up with some kind of an explanation.   Ray reminds himself that he's always been able to take a hit, and keep fighting back, but honest to God, if Fraser freaks out on him here, if Fraser leaves him, he's not sure he can absorb a blow like that. Fact is, this time he's having trouble getting back up. It's awful hard to get air into his lungs. He feels so _heavy._

Ray's usual bounce, weave, one-two hit 'em and bounce, it's not happening. His body feels disconnected from his mind, his arms and legs won't move, his eyes won't open. He's down deep, and hard as he fights, he can't seem to draw enough breath to make his way back up to the surface.

  "This is the story," someone says. The voice is too deep to be Ray's mom's.

  Ray tries to make a noise, to cry out, "Here I am! Please find me." He doesn't know if he makes any sound or not.  

Someone touches him, warmth across his cheek, a warm hand reaching down through the icy water.  

"This is the story," Fraser's invisible voice says, "of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed..."  

Ray quits struggling against the dark, and tries to listen.  

"...through the bathrooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the tailor bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the muskrat..."  

Ray lets out a long, slow breath...

  "...but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting."

  ...and then Ray breathes in again.

    
\--#--  


End file.
